Jamie Adams

Conspiracy theorists and free speech

Lots of talk on the internet today about YouTube & Facebook deleting the account belonging to David Icke, the former footballer and TV sports presenter now making a living as a paranoid bullshit merchant who believes a secret cabal of shape-shifting inter-dimensional lizard people run the world. Lately, he’s been wittering on about 5G, Bill Gates and COVID-19. An expert he is not, but he’d be a good case study on the long term effects of having a football kicked directly at your head.

The deletion of his account is seen, by a minority, as an attack on free speech. It’s nonsense, but let’s run with it. The main argument against is that social platforms should be an open field of opinion and that the best will win out. It sounds logical. I can buy into it on an emotional level. The flaw is that it relies on the assumption that people possess critical thinking skills – the ability to analyse a wide variety of sources, separate fact from fiction and come up with an informed opinion. That some people consider David Icke, Alex Jones and Katie Hopkins to be expert sources would indicate that this is not the case. We also know that social media is not a level playing field – because lies spread faster than the truth.

I was arguing with someone about vaccinations and posted a link to an article on the New Scientist site and they sent me a cry-laugh emoji and said read up on reliable sources and posted a link to a David Icke interview and a Mumsnet thread.

Falsehoods have real consequences. Idiots are burning down phone masts, children are dying from preventable diseases, and now it’s suggested that the government intends to turn the whole population into mindless zombies by including ‘nano-tech’ – designed by Bill Gates, no less – in the COVID-19 vaccine.

If you come to my house and act like a dickhead, I’m going to ask you to leave. Similarly, if Facebook and YouTube believe you are being a dick, in their capacity as private companies, they have every right to prevent you from posting on their platforms. It’s nothing to do with freedom of speech, and everything to do with you being a dick.

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